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PORTRAIT 



OP 



BONAPARTE? 



A VIEW 



HIS ADMINISTRATION. 



BY F. J. DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 



TOGETHER WITH 



AN ODE TO NAPOLEON. 







. NEW- YORK : 
.PUBLISHED BY EASTBURN, KIRK & CO. AT THE LITERARY 
ROOMS, CORNER OF WALL AND NASSAU-STREETS. 



1814. 



PORTRAIT OF BONAPARTE. 

■£In sketching the following animated portrait of Bo- 
naparte, M de Chateaubriand displays the hand 
of a master. Bold and original in his conceptions, 
fearless and intrepid in his language, terse and sen- 
tentious in his style, he portrays, in lively but faith- 
ful colours, the terrific sway of the late tyrant of 
France and scourge of mankind. M. Chateaubriand 
had acquired, previous to the appearance of this 
work, a great and deserved celebrity by the publi- 
cation of several distinguished W orks Mis Grfiie du 
Christianisme, and his JHartyrs, had obtained for 
him a place in the first ranks of French literature. 
It ought not, therefore, to excite surprise, that the 
production of an author so celebrated, issuing 
from the press at a crisis so interesting and impor- 
tant, should ha e circulated with a rapidity before 
unknown, and to an extent unparalleled in the his- 
tory of French publi cations. £ en thousand copies 
of this eloquent production, says the Journal cles 
DebatSy proving insufficient to satisfy the public 
curiosity, the author has published a seeond edi- 
tion, which has undergone several alterations, of 
which the following extract from the new preface 
will best show the spirit :] 

" The battle was still raging at Mont- 
martre, when the printer, who devoted 
himself with me to the cause of the Bour- 
bons, came in quest of the manuscript of 



this work. Bonaparte was at Fontain- 
bleau with 50 or 60,000 men; the fate 
of the House of Bourbon still remained 
undecided. In case of reverse, nothing 
but the most speedy flight could save 
me from death. It is true that since the 
period of the assassination of the Duke 
D'Enghein, I had been accustomed to 
run the chances of fortune : threatened 
every six months with being shot, sabred, 
or imprisoned for the remainder of my 
life, I nevertheless persisted in doing 
what appeared to me my duty. But un- 
der the recent circumstances in which I 
last wrote, it was natural that my mind 
should not be sufficiently at ease to ob- 
serve all the little proprieties : on the 
field of battle a man does not deal out 
his blows by measure ; I was entitled, 
therefore, to some indulgence. On a 



subject of an interest so pressing, so ge« 
neral, I hoped that some little errors 
would have been overlooked, insepara- 
ble from a work finished amidst the roar 
of cannon, and published, so to speak, in 
the breach. 

" The Italians would wish that I had 
not confounded Corsica with Italy ; they 
quote to this effect an Italian proverb, 
abusing the country of Bonaparte. It 
is evident, however, that I have attacked 
neither Corsica nor Italy generally : it 
is always absurd to ascribe to nations 
the fault of individuals : if Corsica pro- 
duced a Bonaparte, did not France give 
birth to a Robespierre 1 Noble and great 
families, men remarkable for their ener- 
gy and talents, have sprung from that 
island, at present too famous. Was it not 

to the first Marshal Ornano that Henry 

1# 



6 

IV. was partly indebted for the submis- 
sion of Dauphine ? And at this day it is 
one of Bonaparte's countrymen, who by 
his patience, his firmness, his courage, 
and his talents, has mainly contributed 
to the restoration of the French mon- 
archy, (M. Pozzo de Borgho.) 

" As to the calamities which the 
French have in all ages spread in Italy, 
and the misfortunes which France has ex- 
perienced under the government of Ita- 
lians, these are facts attested by history ; 
but they would not justify any sweeping 
conclusion against the French or Ita- 
lians." 

The preface concludes thus : " I shall 
be happy if this work have done some 
service, and served to tear asunder the 
veil which covered the odious tyranny. 
The last moments of Bonaparte suffi- 



ciently justify rny opinion of that man* 
I had long foreseen that he would not 
make an honourable exit ; but I confess 
he even exceeded my expectation of 
him. He only retained in his humilia- 
tion his character of player and imitator 
— he affects to be cool and indifferent: 
he criticises and speaks of himself as of 
another man — of his fall as of an acci- 
dent happening to a neighbour ; he af- 
fects to reason about what the Bourbons 
have to hope and fear: he affects to be 
a Sylla, a Dioclesian, as before an Alex- 
ander, or a Charlemagne. He wishes to 
appear insensible to every thing, and per- 
haps is so in reality — one expression of 
joy has burst forth amidst his apathy : 
one sees that he is glad to live. Let us 
not envy him that happiness; where a man 
is pitiable, he is no longer to be feared." 



1Z\TERI0R ADMINISTRATION OF FRANCE, 

ON THE ACCESSION OF BONAPARTE TO THE 
IMPERIAL THRONE. 

Then commenced the grand saturnalia 
of royalty : crimes, oppression, slavery, 
marched with a step equal with folly. 
All liberty expired ; every honourable 
sentiment, every generous thought, be- 
came conspiracies against the state. If 
one spoke of virtue, he was suspected ; to 
praise a good action, was an injury done 
to the prince. Words changed their 
meaning : a people who combated for 
its legitimate sovereign was a rebellious 
people : a traitor was a faithful subject ; 
all France became an empire of false- 
hood; journals, pamphlets, discourses, 
prose and verse, all disguised the truth. 
If it had rained, we were assured that 
the day was delightful; if the tyrant bad 



gone into the midst of a silent people, he 
advanced, we were told, amidst the ac- 
clamations of the multitude. The only 
object was the prince : morality consist- 
ed in devoting itself to his caprices, duty 
in praising him. It was, above all things, 
necessary to exclaim with admiration, 
when he was guilty of a fault or crime. 
Men of letters were forced, by menaces, 
to celebrate the despot. They agreed, 
they capitulated about the degree of 
praise ; happy when, at the price of some 
commonplace observations upon the 
glory of arms, they had purchased the 
right of sending forth some sighs, of de- 
nouncing some crimes, of recalling some 
prescribed truths ! No book could ap- 
pear without the approbation of Bona- 
parte, as a mark of slavery. In the new 
edition of ancient authors, all that was 



10 

found against conquerors, servitude and 
tjranny, was retrenched, as the Direc- 
tory formerly had the design of expung- 
ing from the same authors, all that rela- 
ted to monarchy and kings. The alma- 
nacs were examined with care ; and the 
conscription formed an article of faith in 
the catechism. In the arts there was 
the same servitude : Bonaparte poisoned 
his diseased soldiers at Jaffa: a picture 
was made which represented him as do- 
ing friendly offices, through excess of 
courage and humanity, to these same in- 
fectious soldiers. It was not thus that 
St. Louis healed the sick, whom a strong 
and religious confidence presented to his 
royal hands. Finally, public opinion 
must not be expressed : the maxim was, 
that the sovereign should dispense with 
it every morning. There was, in addi- 



11 

tion tcr the police, brought to perfection 
by Bonaparte, a committee charged to 
give direction to mental faculties, and at 
the head of this committee a director of 
public opinion. Imposture and silence 
were the two grand means employed to 
keep the people in error. If your chil- 
dren had died in the field of battle, do 
you suppose that so much notice would 
be taken of you as to tell you what had 
become of them ? Events the most im- 
portant to the country, to Europe, and the 
whole world, were concealed. The ene- 
my are at Meaux ; but you learn it only 
by the flight of the countrymen ; they 
envelop you in darkness ; they sport 
with your inquietudes ; they laugh at 
your griefs; they despise that which 
you perceive and think. You wish to 
raise your voices, an informer denounces 



12 

you, a gendarme arrests you, a military 
commission judges you : they take off 
your head, and you are forgotten. 

Enchaining fathers is not all ; it is ne- 
cessary to dispose of children. We see 
mothers run from the extremities of the 
empire, and come to reclaim, with all 
the eloquence of tears, the sons which 
government has taken from them. Their 
children are placed in schools, where 
they learn, at the sound of the drum, irre- 
ligion, debauchery, contempt of domestic 
virtues, and blind obedience to the sove- 
reign. Paternal authority, respected by 
the most frightful tyrants of antiquity, 
was treated by Bonaparte as error and 
prejudice. He wished to make of our 
sons a species of Mamelukes, without a 
God, without a family, and without a 
country. It appeared that this enemy 



13 

of every thing was bent upon destroying 
France from its foundation. He had 
corrupted more men, and done more in- 
jury to the human race, in the short 
space of ten years, than all the tyrants 
of Rome together, from the days of Nero 
to the last persecutor of the christians. 
The principles which served as the basis 
of his administration, passed from his go- 
vernment into different classes of socie- 
ty ; because a perverse government in- 
troduces vice among the people, as a 
wise government does virtue. Impiety, 
taste for all pleasures and expenses above 
our fortune, contempt of moral ties, a 
spirit of adventure, of violence, and of 
power, descend from the throne into 
families. Had France been a little 
while longer under Bonaparte, she woulcj 
have become a cavern of robbers. 



14 

They have puffed the administration 
of Bonaparte. If administration consist 
in figures ; if to govern well, it be neces- 
sary to know how much a province pro- 
duces in corn, in wine, in oil ; what is the 
last crown which can be raised, the last 
man that can be taken, truly, Bonaparte 
is a grand administrator : for it is impos- 
sible better to organize evil, and more 
completely to put order into confusion. 
But a better administration is that which 
leaves a people in peace, which nourishes 
in them sentiments of justice and piety, 
which is avaricious of the blood of men, 
which respects the rights of citizens, 
property and families. 

And yet, what of the faults and errors 
in his own system! An administration, 
the most expensive, consumed a part 
of the revenue of the state. Armies of 



15 

custom-house officers and receivers ex- 
pended the imposts which they were 
charged to raise. There was no chief 
officer, ever so insignificant, who had not 
five or six deputies under him. Bona- 
parte declared war against commerce. 
If there was any branch of industry ri- 
sing in France, he took it into his hands, 
and it immediately declined. Tobacco, 
salt, wool, colonial commodities, all were 
to him objects of an odious monopoly. 
He was the only merchant of his em- 
pire. 

Every day this restless and whimsical 
man fatigued a people, who had no want 
but repose, with contradictory decrees, 
and oftentimes impossible to be execu- 
ted. He violated in the evening the law 
which he had made in the morning. He 
expended in ten years, fifteen thousand 



16 

million of imposts, which surpasses the 
sum of the taxes levied during the seven- 
ty-seven years of the reign of Louis 
XIV. The plunder of the world, fifteen 
hundred millions, did not suffice him. 
He was occupied to accumulate trea- 
sure by measures the most iniquitous. 
Every prefect, every sub-prefect, every 
mayor, had the right of augmenting the 
duties of cities, of putting additional 
centimes on boroughs, villages, and ham- 
lets ; and of demanding of this and that 
proprietor an arbitrary sum for this and 
that pretended want. All France was 
pillaged. Infirmities, indigence, death, 
education, the arts, the sciences, all paid 
a tribute to the prince. Had you a son 
lame, crippled, incapable of service, a 
law of the conscription obliged you to 
give fifteen hundred francs to console 



17 

yourself for this misfortune. Sometimes 
the sick conscript died before having 
had an examination by the recruiting of- 
ficer : Do you suppose that the father 
was then exempt from paying the 1500 
francs ? Not at all. If the declaration 
of sickness had been made before death, 
and the conscript found himself living 
at the time of the declaration, the father 
was obliged to count the sum upon the 
tomb of his son. Did a poor man wish 
to give some learning to one of his chil- 
dren — it was necessary that he should 
pay eight hundred francs fo the Uni- 
versity, without counting one tenth of 
the pension given to his instructor. Did 
a modern author quote an ancient au- 
thor ; seeing that the works of the lat- 
ter fell into that which they call public 
domain — it was necessary to pay to the 



18 

censor five sous for each line of quota- 
tion. If you translated in quoting, you 
would have to pay only two sous and a 
half per line, because then the quotation 
was a mixed domain ; a moiety appertain- 
ing to the living translator, and the other 
moiety to the dead author. When Bona- 
parte caused food to be distributed to the 
poor in the winter of 1 81 1 , it was believed 
that he exhibited this generosity in conse- 
quence of his economy. He levied, on that 
occasion, the additional centimes, andgain- 
ed four millions by the soup of the poor. 
Finally, he took upon himself the admi- 
nistration of funerals. It was worthy the 
destroyer of the French to lay an impost 
upon their carcasses. And how could 
they employ the protection of the laws, 
since it was he that made them? The 
legislative body dared to speak but once* 



19 

and it was dissolved. One article alone 
of the new codes radically destroyed 
property. An administrator of the do- 
main could tell you — " your property is 
domanial or national. I put it provision- 
ally under sequestration ; go, go to law. 
If the domain is in the wrong, I will re- 
turn your property." And to whom 
have you recourse in this case? To 
the ordinary tribunals ? No : these causes 
are reserved for the examination of the 
council of state, and pleaded before the 
emperor, who is both judge and party 
concerned. 

If property was uncertain, civil liberty 
was less sure. What is more monstrous 
than the commission appointed to inspect 
prisons, and upon the report of which a 
man could be detained, all his life, in 
dungeons, put to torture, shot at night, 
or strangled without trial and without 



20 

judgment. In the midst of all this, 
Bonaparte appointed, every year, com- 
missioners of the liberty of the press, 
and individual liberty ! Tiberius him- 
self never thus sported with the human 
race. 

Finally, the conscription crowned all his 
works of despotism. Scandinavia, called 
by an historian the store house of the 
human race, could not furnish sufficient 
men for this homicidal law. The code 
of the conscription will be an eternal 
monument of the reign of Bonaparte. 
In it is found united ail that which tyran- 
ny, the most subtle and ingenious, could 
imagine to torment and devour the peo- 
ple ; it is truly the code of hell. The 
generations of France have been cut 
down as the trees of the forest ; every 
year 80,000 young men have been de- 
stroyed. But there was not only regular 



21 

death: oftentimes the conscription was 
doubled, and fortified by extraordinary 
levies ; oftentimes it devoured, in ad- 
vance, its future victims, as a spendthrift 
borrows in anticipation of future income. 
It capt the climax by taking persons with- 
out considering their age. The quali- 
ties requisite for dying on the field of 
battle were no longer considered ; and the 
law, in this respect, showed a wonderful 
indulgence : it went back to infancy ; it 
descended to old age: the soldier that 
had served a certain time and left the 
army, and he who had sent another in 
his place, were again conscribed. A 
son of a poor artisan, redeemed three 
times at the price of the little fortune of 
his father, was obliged to march. Ma- 
ladies, infirmities, bodily defects, were of 
no avail. Companies run through our 
provinces, as through an enemy's coun- 



-2 

com the ptoplt 
children. In default of an absent bro- 
ther, they took one that was at home — 
The father answered for the son, the 
wife for the husband : — responsibility 
extended to parents distantly related, 
and even to neighbour?. A village be- 
came bound for the conscript who had 
been born in it. Soldiers garrisoned 
themselves upon the peasantry ; and for- 
ced them to sell their beds for their 
support, until the conscript who had fled 
to the woods had been found. Absur- 
dity was added to atrocity ; oftentimes 
they demanded children of those who 
were so happy as not to have any. 
They employed violence to discover the 
bearer of the name which existed only 
on the roll of the gendarmes, or to find 
a conscript who had served five or six 
years. Women with child were put to 



23 

(ui lure, that ihey might make known the 
place where was concealed their first born. 
Fathers brought the corpse of a son, 
that the j might prove that they had no 
son to give as a conscript. It still hap- 
pened that the children of richer families 
were redeemed — They were destined, 
one day, to become magistrates, scholars, 
proprietors, so useful to the social order 
in a great country : — by a decree of the 
guards of honour, they were destroyed 
in the universal massacre. It had come 
to that point of contempt of the life of 
men, and of France, that conscripts were 
called food for cannon. Among these 
providers of human flesh for cannon, this 
grand question was sometimes agitated — 
how long will a conscript live ? Some 
said he would live thirtv-three months, 
others thirty-six — Bonaparte himself 
said — I have an income of 300,000 mm. 
2* 



24 

Bonaparte caused to perish, in the ele- 
ven years of his reign, more than five 
millions of Frenchmen ! A number which 
exceeds that which perished during the 
civil wars of three ages, under the reigns 
of John, Charles V., Charles VI., 
Charles VII., Henry II., Francis II., 
Charles IX., Henry III., and Henry IV. 

In the last twelve months past, Bona- 
parte has destroyed (without counting 
the national guard) 1,320,000 men, ma- 
king more than a hundred thousand men 
per month ; and yet they tell us that he 
has only consumed a superfluous popu- 
lation I 

But the loss of men is not the greatest 
evil which the conscription produces : it 
tends to replunge us and all Europe into 
barbarism. By the conscription, trades, 
arts and letters are inevitably destroyed. 
The youth, who must die in the field of 



25 

battle at sixteen, cannot devote himself 
to any study. Neighbouring nations, 
obliged to defend themselves, to recur 
to the same means as we, must abandon, 
in their turn, all the advantages of civili- 
zation ; and all people, rushing one upon 
another, as in the time of the Goths and 
Vandals, would witness the evils of those 
days. In breaking the ties of general 
society, the conscription broke those 
of families. Accustomed from their 
cradle to regard themselves as victims 
devoted to death, children, no longer 
obedient to parents, become idlers, 
vagabonds, and debauchees, until they 
must march to pillage and destroy in- 
vaded countries. What principle of re- 
ligion and morality could have time to 
take root in their minds ? Fathers and 
mothers, of this class of people, no longer 
had affection or care for children whom 



26 



they bad prepared themselves to lose, 
who no longer were the riches and sup- 
port, and who became to them only a grief 
and burden. This hardness of heart, this 
forget fulness of every natural sentiment 
which leads to self love, to carelesness 
about good or evil, to indifference for the 
country ; which extinguishes conscience 
and remorse, and which devotes a people 
to servitude, was only preparatory for 
banishing a horror for vice and admira- 
tion for virtue. 

Such was the administration of Bona- 
parte in the interior of France. 

" Absurd in his administration, crimi- 
nal in his policy, what did this stranger 
possess to enable him thus to seduce the 
French nation? His military glory. — 
Well, he is spoiled of that. He was, in- 
deed, a great gainer of battles ; but ex- 
cept that, the least general was more 



27 

able than he. He knew nothing of re- 
treats or of manoeuvres. He is impatient, 
incapable of waiting any time for a re- 
sult, the fruit of a long military combina- 
tion. His only talent is in advancing., 
making points, rushing onwards, and car- 
rying victories, to use his own expres- 
sion, by dint of men. He sacrifices 
every thing for success, without embar- 
rassing himself with a reverse ; he would 
kill half his soldiers by marches forced 
beyond the power of human strength. 
No matter : has he not the conscription 
and the raw materials ? Some have be- 
lieved that he has perfected the art of 
war ; but it is certain that he has made 
it retrograde towards the infancy of the 
art. The masterpiece of the military 
art among civilized nations, is, undoubt- 
edly, to defend a great country with a 
small army; to leave in repose many 



28 

millions of men, behind sixty or eighty 
thousand soldiers, so that the labourer 
who cultivates his land in peace may 
hardly know that a battle is fighting 
a few leagues from his cottage. The 
Roman empire was guarded by 150,000 
men, and Caesar had only a few legions 
at Pharsalia. Let this conqueror of the 
world this day defend us at our firesides. 
What ! has all his genius suddenly aban- 
doned him ? By what enchantment has 
this France, which Louis XIV. had sur- 
rounded with fortresses — which Vauban 
had enclosed like a beautiful garden, 
been invaded on every side? Where 
are the garrisons of his frontier places ? 
They have none. Where are the can- 
non of his ramparts? All are disman- 
tled ; even the vessels of war at Brest, 

at Toulon, and at Rochefort. If 

Bonaparte had wished to deliver o% 



29 

without defence, to the allied powers £ 
if he had sold us ; if he had secretl y con- 
spired against France, could he have 
acted otherwise? In less than sixteen 
months two thousand millions of money, 
four hundred thousand men, all the ma- 
teriel of our armies, and of our strong 
places, have been swallowed up in the 
woods of Germany and in the deserts of 
Russia. At Dresden, Bonaparte com- 
mitted fault upon fault. Forgetful that, 
though crimes sometimes are not pu- 
nished except in the other world, yet 
faults always are in this. He shows 
the most incomprehensible ignorance of 
what was passing in the cabinets ; obsti- 
nately remains upon the Elbe ; is beaten 
at Leipsic, and refuses an honourable 
peace when proposed to him. Full of 
despair and rage, he sets out for the last 
time from the palace of our kings ; goes 



30 

to burn, with a spirit of injustice and in- 
gratitude, the village where thoie same 
kings brought him up; opposes to his 
enemies nothing but activity without 
plan ; experiences a last reverse ; flies 
once more, and at last delivers the 
capital of the civilized world from his 
odious presence. 

The pen of a Frenchman would re- 
fuse to paint the horror of these fields of 
battle. A wounded man was a burden 
to Bonaparte ; it was all the better if he 
died ; he was the sooner rid of him. 
Heaps of mutilated soldiers, thrown pell- 
mell in a corner, remained sometimes 
weeks without having their wounds 
dressed. He had not hospitals large 
enough to contain the sick of an army 
of 7 or 800,000 men, much less surgeons 
enough to take care of them. No precau- 
tion taken for them by the executioner of 



31 

Frenchmen. No medicines, no attend* 
ants; sometimes not even instruments 
for the amputation of fractured limbs. In 
the campaign of Moscow, for want of 
lint, they dressed the wounded with 
hay. When hay failed, they died. We 
have seen wandering about six hundred 
thousand warriors — the conquerors of 
Europe — the glory of France — we have 
seen them wandering among the snow 
and the deserts, supporting themselves 
upon branches of pine trees, for they 
had not strength enough to carry their 
arms ; and covered, instead of clothing, 
with the bloody skins of the horses 
which had served them for their last re- 
past. Old captains, with their hair and 
beard standing on end with icicles, even 
humbled themselves to caress the com- 
mon soldier who had still a little food re- 
maining, that they might obtain a meager 



32 

portion of it To such an extent did 
they experience the torments of famine! 
Whole squadrons, men and horses, were 
frozen t6 death during the night ; and in 
the morning, these phantoms were seen, 
still standing upright in the midst of the 
frost! 

The Emperor of Russia, in the 
spring, caused a search to be made for 
the dead; they have counted more than 
one hundred and sixty thousand dead 
bodies : on a single funeral pile twenty- 
four thousand were burned. The mili- 
tary plague, which had disappeared 
since the time that wars had been con- 
ducted with a small number of men — this 
plague has reappeared with the conscrip- 
tion, with armies of a million of soldiers, 
and with rivers of human blood. And 
what was the part acted by the destroyer 
ot our fathers, of our brothers, of our 



33 

sons, when the flower of Prance was 

thus cut off? He fled! He came to 

the Thuilleries to say, while rubbing his 
hands by the fireside — It is more com- 
fortable here than on the banks of the 
Berezina ! Not a word of consolation to 
the wives, the mothers in tears, with 
whom he was surrounded ; not a regret, 
not an emotion of tenderness, not one 
feeling of remorse, not a single avowal of 
his folly escaped his lips. His infamous 
creatures said — l the most happy circum- 
stance attending this retreat is, that the 
emperor wanted for nothing; he had 
continually plenty to eat and drink; he 
was comfortably shut up in a good warm 
carriage ; in fine, he has suffered no- 
thing, and that is a great consolation.' 
And he, in the midst of his court, ap- 
peared as gay, as triumphant, as glorious,, 
as ever. Clothed with a royal robe, 



34 

and wearing his hat in the style of 
Henry IV. he displayed himself bril- 
liantly upon a throne, and practised the 
royal attitudes which Talma had taught 
him. But all this pomp served only to 
render him the more hideous; and afl 
the diamonds of his crown could not 
conceal the blood with which it was 
covered. 

Alas ! The horrors of the field of bat- 
tle have approached our doors; they 
are no more concealed in the deserts ; 
they are raging at our own firesides, 
even in that Paris which the Normans 
besieged in vain, about a thousand years 
ago, and which boasted that it had never 
had a conqueror except that Clovis who 
became its king. To deliver up a coun- 
try to invasion, is it not the greatest and 
most unpardonable crime? We have 
seen perish under our own eyes the 



35 

residue of our children ; we have seen 
flocks of conscripts, of veteran sol- 
diers, pale and disfigured, supporting 
themselves against the posts in the 
streets, dying in all kinds of misery, 
hardly able to support in one hand the 
weapon with which they had defended 
their country, and to ask alms with the 
other hand ; we have seen the Seine 
covered with barks, our roads encum- 
bered with carriages, filled with the 
wounded, who had not even the first 
dressing on their wounds. One of these 
cars, which might have been followed 
by the track of blood, was broken to 
pieces upon the bulwark ; out of it fell 
conscripts, without arms, without legs, 
pierced with balls or with the spear, 
pouring forth agonizing cries, and be- 
seeching those who passed by to put an 
end to their lives and their miseries. 



36 

" These unfortunates, often taken from 
their cottages, before they had arrived 
at the age of manhood, dragged into the 
field of battle with their country caps 
and clothes ; placed, as food for pow- 
der, in the most dangerous places to ex- 
haust the fire of the enemy : these unfor- 
tunates, I say, would begin to weep and 
cry aloud, as they were falling, pierced 
with bullets, Ah ! my mother ! my wio- 
ther ! A heart-rending cry, which mani- 
fested the tender age of the child, torn 
away in the evening from domestic 
peace ; of the child fallen, all at once, 
from the arms of its mother into those of 
its barbarous sovereign. And for whom, 
so many massacres, so many griefs ? for 
an abominable Tyrant — for a foreigner, 
who would never have been so prodigal 
of French blood, if he had had one drop 
of it in his veins, • . ♦ . ♦ 



37 

Bonaparte has shown himself too mean 
under misfortune to permit us to be- 
lieve that his prosperity was the work of 
his own genius. He is only the child of 
our power, though we believed him to 
be the offspring of his own works. His 
grandeur }ias only arisen from the im- 
mense forces which we had placed in Lis 
hands, at the time of his elevation.— 
He inherited all the armies formed under 
our most able generals. He found a nu- 
merous population, aggrandized by con- 
quests, exalted by triumphs, and by that 
powerful impulse which revolutions al- 
ways give. He had only to strike his 
foot upon the fruitful soil of our country, 
and it brought forth, lavishly to his hand, 
treasures and soldiers. 

Bonaparte is a false great man. That 
magnanimity which characterizes heroes 
and true kings is wanting in him. Hence 



3a 

it appears, that in speaking of him, no 
one quotes a single expression which an- 
nounces Alexander and Caesar, Henry 
IV. and Louis XIV. Nature formed 
him destitute of the tender feelings. The 
master traits in his character are invin- 
cible obstinacy, and an iron will, but 
only for injustice, for oppression, and 
extravagant systems ; for he easily aban- 
dons every plan which might be favoura- 
ble to morality, order, or virtue. Imagi- 
nation governs him ; reason has no con- 
trol over him. His designs are not the 
fruit of any thing profound or matured, 
but the effect of a sudden movement, 
and of sudden resolution. Fickle as 
the men of his own country, he has 
about him something of the buffoon and 
something of the comedian. He is al- 
ways the actor even of those passions 
which he does not possess : he is ever 



39 

on a theatre. At Cairo he is a rene- 
gado, who boasts that he has destroyed 
the ^papacy ; at Paris he is the restorer 
of the christian religion : one while he is 
a believer in revelation ; at another he 
is a philosopher. His scenes are pre- 
pared in advance. A sovereign who 
could take lessons from Talma, that he 
might appear in a royal attitude, is con- 
demned for posterity. Affecting uni- 
versality of genius, he speaks of finances 
and of shows, of war and of fashions ; re- 
gulates the fate of kings, and that of the 
man committed to a bridewell : issues 
from the Kremlin a regulation for the 
theatres ; and on the day of battle issues 
orders to arrest some women at Pa- 
ris. The child of our revolution, he has 
a striking resemblance to his mother : 
Intemperance of language, a taste for 
low literature, and a passion for scrib- 



40 

hling in the newspapers. Under the 
mask of Ca?sar and Alexander, we behold 
a little man, and the offspring of a low- 
born family. He has a sovereign con- 
tempt for mankind, for he judges them 
by himself. His maxim is, that men do 
nothing but from interest, and that hones- 
ty itself is merely calculation. Hence 
the system of fusion, which is the basis 
of his government ; employing equally 
the rogue and the honest man, mingling, 
designedly, vice and virtue, and always 
taking care to place a man in opposition 
to his principles. His great pleasure is 
to dishonour virtue, to soil reputation. 
He corrupts every thing he touches. 
When he has humbled you thus, you 
become his own man, according to his 
expression ; you belong to him by the 
light of civility. 



41 

Born but to destroy, Bonaparte hm 
a horror for the happiness of mankind. 
He said one day — 6 There are yet some 
happy people in France ; they are fami- 
lies who do not know me, who live in 
the country, in a country seat, on an in* 
come of 30 or 40,000 Iivres, but I know 
well how to reach them.' He kept his 
word. He saw one day some of our 
children engaged in play ; he said to a 
bishop who was present — ' Mr. Bishop ? 
do you believe that these have any 
souls ?' Every thing marked with su- 
periority terrifies this tyrant ; all repu- 
tation is an inconvenience to him. He 
is jealous of talents, of wit, of virtue ; 
he would not even love the eclat of a 
great crime, unless the crime was his 
own. In a word, Bonaparte was only the 
man of prosperity. As soon as adver- 
sity, which only makes virtue shine more 
3* 



42 

brilliantly, touched this false great man, 
the prodigy vanished : in the monarch 
we perceive nothing but the adventurer, 
and in the hero nothing but the man 
who had suddenly risen to glory. 

When Bonaparte drove the Direc- 
tory from power, he addressed them in 
these words :— 

" What have you done with that 
France which I left so brilliant in your 
hands ? I left you in peace — I find you 
engaged in war ; I left you victories — I 
find only defeats ; I left you the millions 
of Italy — I find everywhere rapacious 
laws, and misery. What have you done 
with the hundred thousand Frenchmen, 
whom I once knew, with all my compa- 
nions in glory ? They are dead. 

" This state of things can last no 
longer. Before three years it would bring 
us under a despotism ; but we want ?i 



43 

republic, founded on the basis of equali- 
ty, morality, civil liberty^ and political 
toleration," &c. 

This day, man of disaster, we will 
take you at your own words. Tell us 
what have you done with this France so 
brilliant ? Where are our treasures — the 
millions of Italy — of the whole of Eu- 
rope ? What have you done, not with 
the hundred thousand, but with the five 
millions of Frenchmen whom we all 
knew, our relatives, our friends, our 
brothers ? This state of things can last 
no longer; it has plunged us into a fright- 
ful despotism. You wanted a republic, 
and you reduced us to slavery. We 
wanted a monarchy, established on the 
foundations of equality of rights, of mo- 
rality, of civil liberty, of political and 
religious toleration. — Have you given us 
such a monarchy? What have you 



44 

done for us ? What do we owe to your 
reign ? Who is it that tortured Pichegru, 
banished Moreau, loaded with chains 
the sovereign Pontiff, stole the Princes 
of Spain, commenced an impious 
war ? It is you. Who is it that has 
lost our colonies, annihilated our com- 
merce, corrupted our manners, robbed 
the fathers of their children, desolated 
families, ravaged the world, burned more 
than a thousand leagues of country, in- 
spired the whole world with horror at the 
name of Frenchmen ? — It is you. Who 
is it that has exposed France to pesti- 
lence, invasion, dismemberment, con- 
quest ? — It is still you : Behold that 
which you were not capable to demand 
of the Directory, but which we this day 
demand of you. How much more crimi- 
nal are you than those men whom you 
found unworthy to govern us ? A legiti- 



45 

mate and hereditary king, who should 
have loaded his people with but the least 
part of the evils which you have done, 
would have put his throne in jeopardy ; 
and you, usurper and foreigner should not 
you be accursed in our eyes, on account 
of the calamities with which you have 
overwhelmed us ? Should you stili reign 
in the midst of our tombs ! We will enter 
again into our rights through misfortune ; 
we will no more worship a Moloch ; you 
shall no more devour our children ; we 
will have no more of your conscription, 
of your police, of your reproaches, of 
your midnight executions, of your tyran- 
ny. It is not only us, it is the human 
race which accuses you. It demands of 
us vengeance in the name of religion, of 
morality, and of liberty. Where have 
you not spread desolation? In what cor- 
ner of the world lives there an obscure 



46 

family which has escaped your ravages I 
The Spaniard in his mountains, the Uly- 
rian in his valleys, the Italian in his de- 
lightful climate, the German, the Rus- 
sian, the Prussian from his cities in 
ashes, demand of you their children 
whom you have murdered, their tents, 
their cottages, their country seats, and 
their temples, which you have given to 
the flames. The voice of the world de- 
clares you the greatest criminal which 
has ever appeared on the earth. Quit 
at last your iron sceptre ; descend from 
that pile of ruins on which you have 
erected your throne. We will drive 
you away as you drove away the Di- 
rectory. Go ! and, for your only punish- 
ment, be the witness of the joy which 
your fall gives to France, and contem- 
plate, while you pour out tears of rage, 
the spectacle of public felicity ! 



AX 

Conquerors had not yet been suffi- 
ciently hated. Heaven has permitted 
the too long successes of Bonaparte to 
inspire us with an everlasting horror of 
them. It has designed that this con- 
queror should have nothing in com- 
mon with those who have dazzled, while 
they terrified the world. It gave him 
military talent, but without the eclat of 
personal bravery ; an activity wonder- 
ful, but without an object ; a will uncon- 
querable, but without discretion. All his 
disasters, all the disgraces which he has 
experienced, sprung from the same 
causes which produced his triumphs. 
Neither the most unheard-of favours of 
fortune, nor the most terrible lessons of 
adversity; neither the confidence of a 
nation which, tormented with a fright- 
ful anarchy, hoped to find repose in 
him, nor the counsels of illustrious men, 



48 

who wished to point to him the path of 
true glory; nor yet the devotion of 
valorous warriors— nothing was able to 
soften the character of the Corsican sol- 
dier, to rectify his false spirit, to elevate 
his corrupted soul. If we are astonished 
at his obstinacy in destroying the lives 
of men, we are not the less confounded 
at his obstinate love of life. 

He has shown us what self love is, 
when found in an inhuman heart. Never 
was he able to naturalize himself among 
Frenchmen. Was he a Frenchman — he 
who, placed upon a throne which the 
goodness, the grace, and the gallantry of 
our kings had embellished, was ever in- 
sulting women, and rallying them with 
rudeness, upon the decline of their 
beauty ? Was he a Frenchman — he who 
has never given any thing but with the 
intention of abasing the receiver? He 



49 

who in a cowardly manner abused hk 
power, to address, in the midst of his 
court, ignominious abuse to a worthy- 
administrator, to an upright judge, or to 
a brave soldier 1 But why ask this ? He 
insults, even in his camp, our warriors, 
admired by all Europe. What a torrent 
of invective in his bulletins 1 When he 
has committed a military fault, he choo- 
ses, hap-hazard, the name of some gene- 
ral to reproach him with it. He invents 
stories which are believed by no one : 
For instance — it is the rashness of a cor- 
poral, who, by blowing up a bridge, has 
caused to France the greatest reverses 
she has experienced \ 

He always places his best generals 
at the most exposed posts. Twenty 
times he has caused his choice troops, 
and even the mass of his army, to march 
by impracticable roads ; in th§ severest 



60 

seasons, and with an unpitying rapidity. 
At such times, two or three generals re- 
mained, charged with the defence of im- 
portant posts, against forces horribly dis- 
proportioned. He conceals, to dissem- 
ble a check, their acts of the most he- 
roic bravery, and it is often from the 
enemy that we gain the first information 
of them. 

What a savage character in his pre- 
tended greatness ! What a contrast with 
the noble and touching picture which is 
offered to our eyes by the two sove- 
reigns who became, in one day, the allies 
of the French people. Bonaparte wished 
to occupy all the palaces in Europe. 
These monarchs do not even enter into 
the palace of the absent King of France : 
a private apartment suffices them. Since 
the house of Lorraine has given the ex- 
ample of this moderation, which so well 



51 

adorns the throne, the alliance of people 
and of kings is become more intimate. 
We know, now, why these sovereigns 
are beloved: we wait with impatience 
to see this Emperor of Austria, who has 
so well concurred in their generous 
views, and to soften for him, if possible, 
the pain which our deliverance cost his 
heart. Why should we not speak be- 
fore these monarchs, the friends of our 
king, that language of tove of which the 
tyrant has made us almost lose the re- 
collection and the habit. This is the 
day of reunion to the great European 
family ! By what benefits has not the 
inexhaustible magnanimity of the Em- 
peror Alexander signalized this day! 
Two hundred thousand of our country- 
men are to be restored to our embraces ! 
Did ever sovereign make to a king, his 
friend, a present of such magnificence? 



52 

The same contract which is about to 
restore us to repose, is to bring back to 
us that liberty whose bounds we so im- 
prudently transcended, and of which the 
most deceitful tyrant has not left a ves- 
tige in our institutions. Let us have 
no guarantees with him who sported 
with all treaties and with all promises. 
The spirit of concord has dictated the 
guarantees which will unite in one senti- 
ment all the extinguished parties of our 
country ; and we shall again see public 
liberty flourish under the sacred shade 
of monarchical power. 



THE BOURBONS* 

The recollections of old France, reli- 
gion, ancient customs, family morals, the 
habits of our infancy, the cradle, the 
tomb — all attach us to the sacred word 
of King : it terrifies no one ; on the con- 
trary, it inspires confidence. f King, ma- 
gistrate, father — these ideas are insepara- 
ble with every true Frenchman. There 
will not be repose, nor honour, nor hap- 
piness nor stability, in our laws, for- 
tunes, opinions, until the Bourbons are 
re-established on the throne. Surely 
antiquity, more grateful than we, would 
not have failed to call divine a race, 
which, beginning by a brave and pru- 
dent king, and finishing by a martyr, has 



54 

reckoned in the space of nine centuries 
forty-three rnonarchs, among whom we 
do not find but one single tyrant : Singu- 
lar example in the history of the world, 
and eternal subject of pride for our coun- 
try ! Probity and honour were seated 
on the throne of France, as were force 
and policy on many of the other thrones. 
The noble and mild blood of the Capets 
ceased to produce heroes only to make 
kings who were honest men. Some were 
called wise, good, just, well-beloved; 
others, surnamed great, august, fathers 
of learning and of the country. Some 
few among them had passions which 
they expiated by misfortunes ; but none 
frightened the world by those vices 
which load the memory of the Caesars, 
and which Bonaparte has reproduced. 
The Bourbons, last branch of this sa- 



cred tree, have seen, by an extraordina* 
ry fatality, their first king fall under 
the poniard of fanaticism, and their last 
under the axe of Atheism — Demo- 
cracy. Since the time of Robert 
VI. son of St. Louis, from whom he 
descended, there was only wanting for 
them, during so many ages, that glory 
of adversity which they have at length 
so magnificently obtained. What have 
we to reproach them with ? The name 
of Henry the Fourth yet makes every 
French heart bound with joy, while it 
suffuses our eyes with tears ; we owe to 
Louis the 14th the best part of our gkn 
ry. Have we not surnamed Louis the 
16th the most honest man of his king- 
dom? 

This family weeps in exile, not their 
misfortunes, but ours. That young prin- 
cess whom we have persecuted, whom 



we rendered an orphan, weeps every- 
day in foreign palaces, over the heart- 
rending state of the prisons of France. 
She might have received the hand of a 
powerful prince, but she preferred to 
unite her fate to that of her cousin, poor, 
exiled, proscribed, because he was a 
Frenchman, and that she would not 
separate herself from the misfortunes of 
her family. All the world admires her 
virtues; the nations of Europe follow 
her when she appears in their public 
walks — loading her with benedictions; 
and we — we could forget her! When 
she left her country, where she had been 
so unhappy, she looked back and shed 
tears. Constant objects of her prayers 
and love, we hardly know that she exists. 
" / feel> y she sometimes said, "that! 
shall never have children but in France" 
Affecting words, which alone ought to 



57 

make us fall at her feet, and tear from us 
sobs of repentance. 

The brother of our king, Louis the 
18th, who is to be the first to reign over 
xis, is a prince known by his learning, 
inaccessible to prejudices — a stranger to 
vengeance. Of all sovereigns who might 
govern France at present, it is he, per- 
haps, who best suits our actual position, 
or the spirit of the age ; as of all the men 
whom we could choose Bonaparte is the 

least calculated to be a king. The 

institutions of nations are the work of 
time and experience: to reign we must, 
above all things, have reason and uni- 
formity. A prince who has only two 
or three common ideas in his head, but 
useful ones, would be a more suitable 
sovereign for a nation than an extraordi- 
nary adventurer, incessantly engender- 
ing new plans, imagining new laws, not 



believing he reigns but when he labours 
to disturb his people, and changing — de- 
stroying in the evening what he created 
in the morning. Louis the 18th has not 
only those fixed ideas, that moderation, 
that good sense, so necessary in a mo- 
narch, but he is also a prince the friend 
of letters, learned and eloquent like many 
of our kings, possessed of a mind regu- 
lated and enlightened — of a character 
firm and philosophical. 

Let us choose between Bonaparte, 
who returns bringing to us the Bloody 
Code of the Conscription, and Louis the 
1 8th, who advances to heal our wounds 
— the will of Louis the 16th in his hand. 
He will repeat at his coronation these 
words, written by his virtuous brother: 

" I pardon with my whole heart those 
who are my enemies, without my having 



59 

given them the least reason to be so* 
and I pray God to pardon them." 

Monsieur the Count d' Artois, so frank, 
so loyal, so truly French, distinguishes 
himself to-day by his piety, his mildness, 
and his goodness, as much as he was re- 
marked in early youth by his air of 
grandeur and his royal graces. Bona- 
parte was beaten down by the hand of 
God, but not corrected by adversity; 
in proportion as he retreated into the 
country which now escapes from his ty- 
ranny, he dragged after him unhappy 
victims loaded with irons ; it is in the 
last prisons of France that he exercises 
the last acts of his power. Monsieur the 
Count d' Artois arrives alone, without 
soldiers, without support, unknown to 
the French to whom he shows himself. 
Hardly had he pronounced his name, 

before the people fall at his feet; they 

4* 



60 

kiss the skirts of his garment ; they hug 
his knees, they cry out to him ; shed- 
ding floods of tears, " We bring iou 

NOTHING BUT OUR HEARTS! THE MON- 
STER HAS LEFT US NOTHING ELSE !" 

To quit France in that manner, to enter 
it in this. Recognise, my countrymen, on 
one side the usurper, on the other the le- 
gitimate prince. M. the Duke of Angou- 
Ieme has appeared in another of our pro- 
vinces; Bordeaux, the second city of 
the kingdom, threw itself into his arms, 
and the country of Henry IV. ac- 
knowledges with transports of joy the 
heir of the virtues of the people of Beam. 
Our armies have not seen a braver 
knight than M. the Duke of Berri. M. 
the Duke of Orleans proves by his no- 
ble fidelity to the blood of his king, that 
his name is one of the foremost of 
France. I have already spoken of the 
three generations of French heroes, M. 



the Prince of €onde, M. the Duke of 
Bourbon ; I leave to Bonaparte to name 

the third (Enghein ! ! !) 

By what shameful caprice did we give 
to the sen of a tipstaff of Ajaccio, the 
heritage of Robert the Strong? This 
Sobert the Strong descended apparently 
from the second race, and the iast allied 
itself with the first. He was Count of 
Paris. Hugh Capet brought to the 
French, as a Frenchman, Paris, his pa- 
ternal inheritance, also immense proper- 
ty and domains. France, so small under 
the first Capets, enriched and enlarged 
herself under their descendants. To re- 
place this ancient face we went to look 
for a king, as was said by a senator, 
among a people whom the Romans would 
not have for slaves. It was in favour of 
an obscure Italian, whose fortune we 
made by plundering all Frenchmen, that 



62 

we overthrew the Salique law, palla- 
dium of our empire. How much did 
our fathers differ from us in sentiments 
and in maxims ! At the death of Philip 
the Handsome, they adjudged the crown 
to Philip of Valois, in exclusion of Ed- 
ward III. King of England : they pre- 
ferred to condemn themselves to two 
centuries of war, rather than be govern- 
ed by a foreigner. This noble resolu- 
tion was the cause of the glory and 
greatness of France : the or i flame was 
rent in pieces on the plains of Crecy, 
Poictiers and Agincourt, but its frag- 
ments finally triumphed over the ban- 
ners of Edward III. and of Henry V. 
and the cry of Mounljoy Saint Dennis 
strangled all our factions. The same 
question of succession was played off on 
the death of Henry III. The parliament 
*»f that day issued the famous edict 



63 

1 
which gave Henry IV. and Louis 

XIV. to France. These were never- 
theless not ignoble heads — those of Ed- 
ward III., Henry V., the Duke of Guise, 
and the Infant of Spain. Great God ! 
what, then, has become of the pride of 
France ! She refused such great sove- 
reigns in order to preserve the French 
and royal race, and she made choice of 
Bonaparte; nay, his detested birthday 
(15th August) impiously appears in al! 
our almanacs as the day of Saint Napo- 
leon ! ! Will posterity believe what we 
have seen — what we still see ? # * * 

.34. d& •«• dfc -Tfr 
^ w w tF *»F 

Bonaparte has nothing French in his? 
manners or character. His very features 
show his origin. The language which 
he learnt in his cradle is not ours, and 
his accent, like his name, betrays his 
country. His father and mother lived 



64 

the half of their lives subjects of the Re- 
public of Genoa* He is more sincere 
than his flatterers ; he would not acknow- 
ledge himself a Frenchman : he hates 
and despises us. He has been often 
heard to say, it's just like you, ye French 
###### #— In common conver- 
sation he spoke of Italy as his country, 
and of France as his conquest. If Bona- 
parte is a Frenchman we must necessa- 
rily admit that Toussaint Louverture 
was as much, or more so than he; 
for in truth he was born in an old French 
colony, and under French laws; the 
freedom which he received gave him the 
rights of subject and citizen, and a fo- 
reigner, brought up by the charity of our 
kings, occupies the throne of our kings, 
and incessantly pants to shed our blood ! 
We watched over his youth, and in gra- 
titude he plunges us into an abyss of 
wretchedness ! 



65 

How delightful it will be to repose at 
length, after so many troubles and suffer- 
ings, under the paternal authority of our 
legitimate sovereign ! 

We have a legitimate prince, born of 
our blood, educated among us, whom we 
know, who knows us, who has our man- 
ners, tastes, habits, for whom we prayed 
to God in our youth, whose name our 
children know as well as that of their 
nearest neighbours, and whose fore* 
fathers lived and died with ours. 

If the re-establishment of the house of 
Bourbon is necessary to France, it is not 
less so to all Europe. 

To advert at first only to private rea- 
sons, is there a man in the world who 
would put any confidence in the word 
of Bonaparte 1 Is it not one of the 
first points of his policy as well the in- 



66 

clination of his heart, to make talent con- 
sist in deceiving, to look upon good faith 
as folly and the mark of a narrow mind, 
and to laugh at the sanctity of oaths f 
Has he kept a single one of the treaties 
which he made with the different powers 
of Europe 1 It was always by violating 
some article of these treaties, and in full 
peace, that he made Ms most brilliant 
conquests. 

Other powers, so often deceived, could 
they at once resume a security which 
might ruin them ? What, can they so 
soon have forgotten the pride of the ad- 
venturer who treated them with so much 
insolence, who boasted of having kings in 
his antechamber, who sent to signify his 
orders to sovereigns, established spies 
even in their courts, and said openly that 
before ten years his dynasty would be 
the oldest in Europe ! Can kings treat 



er 



with a man who has heaped upon them 
outrages which a simple individual could 
not brook ? A lovely queen, who was 
the admiration of Europe for her beauty, 
her courage, and her virtues, was by him 
precipitated into an untimely grave, by 
the most cowardly, as well as low insults 
and injuries. The sacredness of kings 
as well as decency, restrains me from 
repeating the calumnies, the rudeness, 
and vulgar, coarse pleasantries which, in 
turn, he has poured out against those 
very kings and their ministers, who to- 
day dictate laws to him in his palace* 
If the rulers of other nations despise 
these outrages personally, they cannot, 
and they ought not to despise them for 
the interest and majesty of thrones : they 
owe it even to the happiness of their 
people, to make themselves respected by 
them, by breaking the sword of the usur- 



68 

per, and dishonouring forever that abomi- 
liable right of the strongest, on which Bo- 
naparte founded his pride and his empire. 
It deeply concerns the tranquillity and 
welfare of the people ; it concerns the 
security of crowns, the lives and families 
of sovereigns, that a man, sprung out of 
the inferior ranks of society, should not 
with impunity seat himself on the throne 
of his master, take place among legiti- 
mate sovereigns, treat them as brothers, 
and find in the revolutions which raised 
him, sufficient strength to balance the 
rights of the legitimacy of his race. If 
this example is once given to the world, 
no monarch can reckon on his crown. 
Let them be very careful ; all the mon- 
archies of Europe are very nearly daugh- 
ters of the same manners and the same 
times ; all kings are, in reality, a species 
of brothers, united by the Christian re- 



69 

iigion, and the antiquity of dear and nch 
ble recollections. This beautiful an$ 
great system once broken, new races, 
seated on the thrones, will make other 
manners reign — other principles — other 
ideas. It is done then for ancient Eu- 
rope ; and in the course of some years, 
a general revolution will have changed 
the succession of all its sovereigns. Rings 
then must take the defence of the house 
of Bourbon, as they would that of their 
own family. What is true in this as re- 
gards royalty is equally so considered 
as it respects natural relations. There 
is not a king in Europe who has not 
Bourbon blood in his veins, and who 
does not see in them illustrious and un- 
fortunate relations. The people have 
been but too much taught that thrones 
may be convulsed. It rests with kings 
now to show them, that if thrones can 



70 

be shaken, they cannot be destroyed; 
that for the happiness of the world, 
crowns do not depend on the successes 
of crime and the sports of fortune. 

Paris, like Athens, has seen foreign- 
ers enter her walls, who h 've respected 
her in remembrance of her glory and her 
great men. Eighty thousand conquering 
soldiers have slept by the side of our 
citizens without troubling their slumbers, 
without committing the smallest violence, 
without even singing a song of triumph. 
These are liberators, and not conquer- 
ors. Immortal honour to the sovereigns 
who have given to the world a similar 
example of moderation in the midst of 
victory! What injuries they had to 
avenge! But they did not confound 
Frenchmen with the tyrant who oppres- 
ses them. So have they already reaped 
the fruits of their magnanimity. They 



n 

have been received by the inhabitants 
of Paris as if they had been our true 
monarchs — as French Princes — as, Bour- 
bons. We shall soon behold the de- 
scendants of Henry the Fourth ; Alex- 
ander has promised them to us ; he re- 
collects that the marriage contract of the 
Duke and Duchess of Angouleme are de- 
posited in the archives of Russia. He 
has faithfully preserved the last public 
act of our lawful government; he has 
brought it back to the treasury of our 
charters, where we will preserve in our 
turn the recital of his entry into PARIS 9 
as one of the greatest and most glorious 
monuments of history. 

At the same time let us not separate 
from the two sovereigns who are now 
among us that other sovereign who makes 
to the cause of kings and to the repose 
of tlie people the greatest of sacrifices; 



72 ' 

may be find as a monarch and a father 
the recompense of his virtues in the com- 
passion, the gratitude, and the admiration 
of the French. 

Frenchmen ! friends, companions in 

misfortune, let us forget our quarrels, our 

hatreds, our errors, to save the country ; 

let us embrace each other on the ruins 

ef our dear native land ; and that, calling 

to our succour the heir of Henry IV., 

and of Louis XIV., he should come to 

dry up the tears of his children, restore 

happiness to his family, and charitably 

throw over our wounds the mantle of 

Saint Louis, half torn to pieces by our 

own hands. Let us deeply ponder over 

all the evils which we feel, the loss of 

our property, of our armies, the horrors 

of invasion, the butchery of our children, 

the trouble and the decomposition of all 

France, the loss of our liberties, and 



73 

seriously re fleet that all this is the work 
of one single man, and that we owe all 
the opposite blessings to an omnipotent, 
overruling Providence, through whose 
wisdom and goodness, after a long night 
of darkness and death, light and mercy 
have come among us from all parts of 
Europe with healing in their wings J 
Let us, then, cause to be heard on all 
sides the only shout which can save us, 
that sacred, soul-transporting Paean which 
our fathers made to resound in misfor- 
tune as in victory, and which shall be 
for us the signal of Peace and Happi- 
ness: Long, Long Live the King! 



ODE 



TO 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 



BT 



LORD BYRON. 



1 Expende Jnnibalem . — qvot libras in duce swnmo 

1 Jnvenies ?" Juvknal, Sat, X. 



A# 



O D E 



TO 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 



I. 
'Tis bonb — but .yesterday a King! 

And arm'd with kings to strive — 
And now thou art a nameless thing 

So abject — yet alive ! 
Is this the man of thousand thrones, 
Who strew' d our earth with hostile bone^ 

And can he thus survive ? 
Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star, 
Nor man, nor fiend, hath falFn so far* 



80 



II. 

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kin^ 
Who bow'd so low the knee ? 

By gazing on thyself grown blind, 
Thou taught' st the rest to see. 

With might unquestion'd — power to save, 

Thine only gift hath been the grave 
To those that worshipp'd thee ; 

Nor till thy fall could mortals guess 

Ambition's less than littleness ! 

III. 

Thanks for that lesson — it will teach 

To after warriors more 
Than high philosophy can preach, 

And vainly preach' d before. 
That spell upon the minds of men 
Breaks, never to unite again, 

That led them to adore 
Those Pagod things of sabre-sway, 
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay. 



81 



IV. 

The triumph, and the vanity, 
The rapture of the strife ;(a) 

The earthquake voice of victory, 
To thee the breath of life ; 

The sword, the sceptre, and that sway 

Which man seem'd made but to obey, 
Wherewith renown was life — 

All quell'd — Dark spirit ! what must be 

The madness of thy memory ! 

V. 

The desolator desolate ! 

The victor overthrown ! 
The arbiter of others' fate 

A suppliant for his own ! 
Is it some yet imperial hope 
That with such. change can calmly cope ? 

Or dread of death alone ? 
To die a prince — or live a slave — 
Thy choice is most ignobly brave ! 



M 



VI. 

He who of old would rend the oak 
Dreamed not of the rebound ; 

Chained by the trunk he vainly broke 
Alone — how look'd he round ! 

Thou in the sternness of thy strength 

An equal deed hast done at length, 
And darker fate hast found : 

He fell, the forest-prowlers' prey ; 

But thou must eat thy heart away ! 

VII. 

The Roman, when his burning heart 
Was slaked with blood of Rome, 
Threw down the dagger — dared depart 

In savage grandeur home. — 
He dared depart, in utter scorn 
Of men that such a yoke had borne. 

Yet left him such a doom ! 
His only glory was that hour 
Of self-upheld abandon'd pow r er. 



$3 

VIII. 

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway 
Had lost its quickening spell, - 

Cast crowns for rosaries away, 
An empire for a cell. 

A strict accountant of his beads, 

A subtle disputant in creeds, 
His dotage trifled well : 

Yet better had he neither known 

A bigot's shrine nor despot's throne. 

IX. 

But thou — from thy reluctant hand 

The thunderbolt is rung — 
Too late thou hear'st the high command 

To which thy weakness clung : 
All Evil Spirit as thou art, 
It is enough to grieve the heart 

To see thine own unstrung ; 
To think that God's fair world hath been 
The footstool of a thing so mean. 



84 



X. 

And earth hath spilt her blood for him 

Who thus can hoard his own ! 
And monarchs bow'd the trembling limb, 

And thank'd him for a throne ! 
Fair Freedom ! we may hold thee dear, 
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear 

In humblest guise have shown. 
O ! ne'er may tyrant leave behind 
A brighter name to lure mankind. 

XI. 

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore, 

Nor written thus in vain — 
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more, 

Or deepen every stain. — 
If thou hadst died as honour dies, 
Some new Napoleon might arise, 

To shame the world again. 
But who would soar the solar height 
To set in such a starless night ? 



85 



XII. 

Weighed in the balance, hero dust 

Is vile as vulgar clay ; 
Thy scales, mortality ! are just 

To all that pass away ; 
But yet methought the living great 
Some higher sparks should animate, 

To dazzle and dismay ; 
Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth 
Of these, the conquerors of the earth, 

XIII. 

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower, 

Thy still imperial bride ; 
How bears her breast the torturing hour ? 

Still clings she to thy side ? 
Must she too bend, must she too share 
Thy late repentance, long despair, 

Thou throneless homicide ? 
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, 
'Tis worth thv vanish'd diadem ! 



&> 



XIV. 

Then haste thee to thy sullen isk;. 

And gaze upon the sea ; 
That element may meet thy smile : 

It ne'er was rul'd by thee ! 
Or trace with thine all idle hand, 
In loitering mood upon the sand, 

That earth is now as free ! 
That Corinth's pedagogue hath how 
Transferred his by- word to thy brow- 

XV. 

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage 

What thoughts will there be thine* 
While brooding in thy prison'd rage ? 

But one — " The world was mine. ,? 
Unless, like he of Babylon, 
All sense is with thy sceptre gone, 

Life will not long confine 
That spirit poured so widely forth — 
So long obeyed — so little worth ' 



8f 



XVI. 

Or like the thief, of fire from heaven 
Wilt thou withstand the shock, 
And share with him, the unforgiven, 

His vulture and his rock ? 
Foredoomed by God, by man accurst, 
And that last act, though not thy worst s 

The very fiend's arch mock ;(&) 
He in his fall preserved his pride, 
And if a mortal, had as proudly died ! 



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